80's Music:
CD's, Synths, and the Rise of MTV
John Lennon is murdered in New York in December 1980, only weeks after releasing his first album in five years. MTV launches in 1981 as a 24-hour cable channel built around music videos, turning visual presentation into a central part of popular music marketing. Its reach expands rapidly during the decade. VH1 follows in 1985 with programming aimed at an older audience and a softer adult-pop and rock format.
Music video becomes a powerful marketing tool, helping new wave, synth-pop and glam metal reach mass audiences. Rap and hip-hop records also move steadily toward the mainstream, even though MTV is slow to give Black artists consistent exposure. Across pop, rock and R&B, female performers including Madonna, Whitney Houston, Janet Jackson, Tina Turner and Cyndi Lauper achieve major sales and reshape the decade’s visual culture.
Large-scale benefit projects become a defining feature of mid-decade pop culture. Band Aid records “Do They Know It’s Christmas?” in 1984, USA for Africa answers with “We Are the World” in 1985, and the Live Aid and Farm Aid concerts use television and star power to raise money and awareness for humanitarian and agricultural causes.
The compact disc reaches consumers in 1982 and becomes the first mass-market digital audio format. CD sales grow quickly as prices fall and catalogs are reissued, while vinyl LP sales decline. By the end of the decade, cassettes and CDs coexist as the leading formats.
